Pharmaceutical companies are one of the biggest influences in the US economy and, subsequently, in US law. It is no secret that Big Pharma has lobbied against medical (and recreational) marijuana legalization as they stand to lose a substantial amount of money.

States that have already legalized medical cannabis are already seeing the effects: prescription drug usage has decreased by an average of 11 percent.

The National Academies of Science keeps track of the conditions most effectively treatedwith medical marijuana , and nearly all of them have high-profit prescription counterparts.

Big Pharma is an incredibly powerful and lucrative industry. While $18.5 billion in losses over a three year period may seem enormous, “medical cannabis would be a drop in the bucket when it comes to impacting the total pharmaceutical industry”, according to Giadha Aguirre De Carcer, founder and CEO of New Frontier Data.